The Anatomy of Fascism

“It would be so much easier for us,” wrote Umberto Eco in his 1995 essay Eternal Fascism “if there appeared on the world scene somebody saying, ‘I want to reopen Auschwitz, I want the Blackshirts to parade again in the Italian squares.’ Life is not that simple. Ur-Fascism can come back under the most innocent of disguises. Our duty is to uncover it and to point our finger at any of its new instances — every day, in every part of the world.”

To label someone a Fascist today has lost all meaning, so often is that insult hurled, but the political ideology of fascism again presents a clear and present danger. Fascism lives on in many forms, like a deadly virus frozen in arctic ice, waiting for the thaw to reanimate.

But what is fascism? Where does it come from? How can we spot it in its early stages? In his study The Anatomy of Fascism, Robert Paxton attempts to draw together the disparate strands of research into what he calls “The major political innovation of the 20th Century, and the source of much of its pain.”

Deeply concerning, to even a casual observer, is how closely the conditions which enabled the rise of fascism in the 1930s resemble the modern world.

Fascism was born in a Milanese meeting room on 23rd March, 1919. Benito Mussolini convened the first meeting of his Fascist Party, with around one hundred followers. Within 25 years the ideology had wrought the worst suffering the human race had ever seen, or even been able to imagine. What might that ragtag gang of disaffected socialists, intellectuals, futurists and First World War veterans have thought had they been confronted with the images of horror which their ideology would produce?

Paxton is at pains to point out that fascism did not occur in a vacuum. There had been precursors, nationalists morphing into authoritarians; racialists; uniformed thugs seeking to protect their status (he points out the Ku Klux Klan as an interesting early example). But in order to take root fascism needs the correct conditions.

The advent of universal suffrage after the First World War was key. Most of the uneducated masses had no idea how to use Democracy to their advantage, and many rejected it altogether, either through allegiance to Communism or fascism. Worse still, the existing conservative elite, raised to believe they had a right to rule, had no idea how to communicate with the common man. They had lost touch, in modern parlance, and so were rejected by the working men of Europe. Instead the proletariat, and more importantly, the bruisers and thugs who had ruled the streets of European slums, gravitated towards demagogues like Mussolini, Thaelmann, Hitler et al. It was, as William Shirer put it, as if the gutter had risen up, flooding the streets. Thomas Mann was even less charitable. “The common scum had taken power, accompanied by rejoicing of the masses.” In Mann’s words though, we find a cause of proletariat rage: the contempt in which they were held by the educated classes. So fascism came as the evil kid brother of the more established Communist movement, and then came to be its nemesis.

It is all well and good being “for the people” as these demagogues claimed, but the reactionary mind craves something to be against, and the early fascists found its anti-thesis in the internationalism of the left. It presented itself to the working man as the antidote to International socialism or communism, instead claiming to be a kind of national socialism, defined by its difference from other nations. “We Germans/Italians/British/Spanish etc, will not be dragged into an amorphous European mass.”

The fascists used the overt nationalistic propaganda of the war, against the elites which had fostered it. In modern times the Fascist can easily call upon the European project as the greatest threat to “us,” whoever “we” are. Witness Le Pen or Farage and the rage they tapped to bring about Brexit, (and perhaps a future Frexit?)

Of course, the promises made to the hoi polloi were as hollow as the ideology itself. Paxton notes that “when the Fascists came to power they did nothing to carry out their anticapitalist threats,” instead they “enforced with the utmost violence their threats against socialists.” Why?

The answer lies in the expedient minds of the Fascist leaders. Whilst they spoke of the universal good, all of them were motivated by power. The Fascist is first and foremost an opportunist, who will play upon any fear, roll any dice, and get in to bed with any party who can help him (and it is almost always a him) climb the ladder.

Both Hitler and Mussolini, and Paxton’s main focus is on the two most notable Fascist states of Europe, realized that motivating a small section of the working classes, and a fair number of petty bourgeoisie would not be enough. They had to use their popularity with a minority of voters, many of whom were willing to use violence to achieve their goals, as a stick against ruling elites. No fascism has ever prospered without the approval of existing conservative elites. The working people of today should take note: they, like their forebears, are being sold snake oil.

This opportunism lies at the heart of why fascism has proven such a difficult ideology to characterise. Every fascism is different, as Paxton notes. Each must appeal to the peculiar grievances and fears of its target audience, as well as appealing to their unique sense of nationhood, and national myths. Thus, if fascism came to England, it would cloak itself in Arthurian legends; the myth of “the few”; the glory days of the British Empire. If it came to the United States we would hear talk of the self-made American; the pioneers; the city upon a hill etc. That these national myths are based on falsehoods is irrelevant. They stir the passions of the masses. One only has to watch a Donald Trump rally to see this effect at first hand.

Fascism needs a sense of grievance. A call back to something that has been lost, and a call for national regeneration. Return to the good old days (Make America Great Again is a perfect example). Hitler had his treaty of Versailles, ISIS have their humiliation of the Ummah at the hands of Jews and Crusaders.

Because it feeds upon the national self-image, fascism finds it incredibly difficult to cross borders. Unlike its mirror image, communism, it is confined to a single identity. There is nothing in fascism which guarantees it becomes racist, but it always ends up that way because of its exclusion of the other, as being not part of the national identity. Indeed, as Paxton points out, a number of Mussolini’s early backers were Jewish.

What is more fascism calls for strength. Modernity represents weakness. Compromise represents weakness. The call for strength flirts with the muscular, angular manual worker, enticing him on to the dance floor. These men whose lives are defined by their physical prowess are naturally drawn to an ideology which makes great virtue of their only commodity, which promises to make them for once masters of their own destiny. When Donald Trump tells unemployed auto-workers in Detroit that he will order manufacturers to return the industry to their city, we must understand that he is doing this for a specific reason. The spectacle of the rally, mirroring those of the 1930s, has a peculiar allure to the individual. The appeal is towards the sense of being a part of something larger than oneself. If you can convince an auto-worker that he is a player in a cosmic struggle between good and evil, you might just get his complete obedience.

Paxton’s work is of the utmost importance to us today. All around the world we see these twisted and hateful ideas on the rise. From Poland to Hungary, from Brexit to the rise of Trump, the people are rejecting the status quo, and just like in the 1930s, the elites are losing touch and failing to communicate their ideas. In the Arab world, the sense of grievance is played upon by the Muslim Brotherhood, in the United States the urge towards regeneration and purification is played upon by the Christian-right Dominionists.

If we are to prevent a return to what WH Auden called “That low, dishonest decade,” we must be ready to face the challenges presented by the extremists, the bullies, the thugs and bruisers whose predecessors wrought so much damage to our species. This might also, alas, include accommodating and ameliorating the fears, however unfounded, that the masses feel. Fear of the other, and of progress or change, is a normal human reaction. It could even be that this is our natural state, an evolutionary hangover from the long gone days when family, clan or tribal loyalty ensured the survival of our genes. A hangover which is expressed today through nationalism, in group/out group enmity, even sports teams and rival schools. How can we prevent the outbreak of hostilities based upon such pointless disagreements in the future? Paxton, as a historian, offers no easy answers, but it is through a close reading of the history of our nadir, that we can prevent a catastrophic return.

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Robert Shaw is a journalist from Manchester, England. He studied English at Manchester Metropolitan University, before moving to Berlin, Germany in 2010. He has written for a wide range of publications and currently lives in New York City.

9 comments

1. This article does not mention ‘Gentile’ who was a famous Italian philosopher who was perhaps the original creator of Italian Fascism.
2. Mussolini had support from over 4000 Jewish members of his Fascist party and many of Mussolini’s ministers were Jewish.
3. One of the issues Hitler had with Mussolini was the fact that Mussolini would not remove any of his Jewish ministers.
4. Mussolini was fond of Jews and called them ‘fierce warriors’ (if i remember correctly).

This may sound controversial but it is the truth. My father fought in that war and is still alive 93 years old at the time of this comment. He recalls it all. There is much written on this but it seems to be removed because Jewish people do not want to admit their part in the development and support of Fascism in Italy. Ironically there are many stories of Italians protecting Jews from the Nazi Fascist forces and being executed as a result.

Too much attention on the holocaust not enough attention on the people like my father who fought against Fascism and Nazism. Like my uncle who was murdered at 19 for defending his village in Italy by the Nazi Fascist. We do not hear enough about the resistance and the lives lost. We only hear about the holocaust. Over 64 million people died in that war. Time for the truth. Time for the Jewish people to acknowledge the help of America, England, Italian partigiani, French resistance and the like who sacrificed many for their country and helped many Jewish people escape.

Remember that there was a resistance in Italy – the courage of these people to stand up to both Fascsim and Nazism is not spoken about nor told to our school children. Instead all we hear is about the holocaust.

Please help do something about this and help reveal the Truth about Mussolini – dig deep, you will see the Truth. It has been suppressed that Mussolini was backed by Jewish support. This needs to be told far and wide. Jewish people hide behing this and do not take the responsibility of their actions in WWII and the development and support of Italian Fascism. Yet they want reperations and have built holocaust museums all over the world and profit greatly from it.

They paint everyone else as evil – yet they had a hand in it as well. Research this before you critisize me or admonish me. I will always stand for Uncle who perished. The Nazi Fascist tied him to a tree and tortured him, removed his eyes and burnt him alive. In my honor of him I say these things.

I do not want any reperations or want anyone to feel guilty. I have no animosity to anyone. The Truth is what needs to be tolds. Too many jewish people in the media right now are coining “white privilege” and bashing white people. Yet they have forgotten who got them out of the mess they created in WWII by declaring war on Germany in 1933 and supporting Mussolini. Truth and only Truth. No anger, no bias, no emotion.

Please do your homework Areo. You did great work with the ‘gender studies’. Uncover this as well. European people and the American people need to clear the air on WWII as it is dominated with one sided Holocaust stories which produce millions of dollars of revenue for the holocaust industry.

In America now all school children will be forced to learn about the holocaust. You will find when you research what I said above a similar story that you found with ‘gender studies’. The reason why the Truth is not spoken because people like my mother would rather forget about it and never re-live the horrors of WWII and more importantly the backlash from institutions like ACLU and others citing anti-semitism. However the Truth is not anti-semitic and I have had enough hearing about Mussolini without the Truth of his Jewish allies and support base.

Writing about Poland in this context is the peak of stupidity. The lack of acceptance of irrational reloctaion policy of illegal immigrans from North Africa and care about polish interest became the basis for accusations of nationalism etc….. Insted of writing about fascism in the context of Poland, I recommend the author of this text deepr insight into the actual situation in Poland and polish history instead of reproduction of leftist simplified ideas.

The corporate elite, which has more political power than government, is free to squeeze the lives of people everywhere, by placing excess profit above social well being.

By doing so they help destroy social bonds. The majority of people participate in this passively by consuming their cheap products no matter how they’re produced.

Many, many people are unaware of their influence, except in the vaguest way, and find it easier and more immediately satisfying to blame immigrants etc etc for their woes.

The left is driven by inflexible dogma, and is incompetent at talking to the dissaffected casualties of corporate power, and always prioritizes a dialogue of victimhood over blunt common sense. That’s why the working class don’t listen to, trust, or vote for them.

All this leaves the field wide open for fascists, or their warm up act precoursers.

Probably yes. “The advent of universal suffrage after the First World War was key. Most of the uneducated masses had no idea how to use Democracy to their advantage, ” I witnessed the war against education, knowledge and intellectual achievement in Hungary, the consequencies were predictable althow I still get surprised by the level of standardised stupidity. Unlike a century ago, education is available now, it takes effort to dissuade masses from information and thinking.

If the rise of modern fascism (come on say it…. Trump) is the monster then the question is who is Dr Frankenstein? Might it just be the advocates of post modernist Marxist (anti-Enlightenment) thought; or the masters of Identity Politics, or the Inter sectionalists; or those who dominate our Universities and Government Quangos? Or is it those who label the genuine concern about unplanned immigration as Racism or Bigotry ? Or is just those who have little or no regard for Free Speech.

I don’t quite see how Mussolini’s Fascist party and it’s ideology is to blame for the horrors of the second world war. Italy’s fascist dictatorship was relatively benign (as were those of Spain and Portugal) in comparison to NS Germany and the USSR. The blame lies with Hitler and Stalin, who together instigated the global conflict.

“President Franklin Roosevelt expressed admiration for the Italian leader, and sent him cordial letters. In June 1933, Roosevelt praised Mussolini in a letter to an American envoy: “… I am much interested and deeply impressed by what he has accomplished and by his evidenced honest purpose of restoring Italy and seeking to prevent general European trouble.” In another letter a few weeks later, the President wrote: “I don’t mind telling you in confidence that I am keeping in fairly close touch with the admirable Italian gentleman.”